This article was originally published in the July 1, 1994 issue of the Boston Phoenix.

A little-known provision in the crime bill now being negotiated by a House-Senate conference committee would greatly expand the number of prison cells available to house violent criminals, and it wouldn't be cost a dime. But it may be doomed unless Senator Ted Kennedy is willing to spend some political capital.

The provision is called the "safety valve" to reform that would allow federal judges to bypass mandatory sentencing when dealing with first-time non-violent drug offenders. And in a rare display of political smarts and courage, both houses of Congress would make the safety valve retroactive. According to the US Sentencing Commission, this means between 1600 and 5000 current federal inmates could qualify for release- thus freeing up those cells for criminals who are truly dangerous.

But the retroactive clause is in jeopardy. The Clinton administration, wary of being cast as pro-criminal, is working against it. Attorney General Janet Reno, once a staunch advocate of releasing first-time non-violent offenders, has quietly switched. And Senator Joseph Biden (D- Delaware), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is doing the White House's bidding.

"The Department of Justice has a problem with it," says a congressional source. "They're afraid of a Willie Horton ad that says, 'You let somebody out of prison.'"

Kennedy, who helped insert the safety valve in the crime bill, is the senior Democrat among the 19 senators and representatives who make up the conference committee. Unless he is willing to stand up to Bill Clinton and Joe Biden, the retroactive provision is not likely to survive. Thus far Kennedy has given little indication of how hard he'll fight for it, and it surely doesn't help that he has a touch re-election battle on his hands.

But there is a light at the end of the cell block. The emerging consensus on targeting prisons for violent offenders includes a growing number of conservatives and Republicans, including both of Kennedy's GOP opponents.

"Of course, it's counterproductive to jail these people on mandatories," Kennedy said in an interview with the Phoenix adding judges should be allowed to exercise their discretion as long as they follow federal guidelines.

The US Sentencing Commission establishes guidelines on sentencing for certain crimes. If a judge wishes to disregard the guidelines, she or he must put those reasons in writing. "I am strongly in favor of the sentencing guidelines," Kennedy says, "and I'm strongly opposed to mandatory minimums. We have undermined, in a very important way, the integrity of the guidelines by putting the wrong people in."

The safety valve is part of the massive crime bill being negotiated by the conferees. The Senate approved a $22 billion crime bill last November in a 96-to-four spasm of bipartisanship.

The Senate bill offered up plenty of macho for conservatives: 53 new death-penalty provisions (among them: capital punishment for murdering a federal poultry inspector); a three-strikes-and-you're-out law to lock up three-time felons for life without parole; funding for 100,000 new police officers; and $8 billion for more prison cells. Liberals got much of what they wanted, too: gun-control initiatives, expanded drug treatment, and a gaggle of prevention programs aimed at young people.

Time for law to end torture In a collaborative effort between human-rights activists and incarcerated Mainers, a bill to end the use and abuse of solitary confinement has been drafted and will be submitted to legislators soon.

A mysterious new inmate death Despite a scandal earlier this year over a prisoner death, state corrections officials won’t allow the Phoenix to interview a Maine State Prison inmate who has claimed in letters that prison staff abused an ailing prisoner, Victor Valdez, before Valdez died in late November.

Screams from solitary The 132-man supermax unit within the 925-man Maine State Prison is an expensive, taxpayer-funded torture chamber that for 18 years has sucked in mostly nonviolent, mostly mentally ill prisoners and ground them up by means of mind-destroying solitary confinement, officially sanctioned beatings, “restraint” devices resembling those in medieval dungeons, sexual humiliation, and psychiatric, medical, and legal neglect.

Are doctors complicit in prison torture? In the past few years an outcry has arisen over the involvement of military and CIA medical professionals and psychologists in torture. Some critics have even suggested criminal prosecution of the medical staff involved or, at least, revocation of their professional licenses.

Murderabilia Incarcerated in a maximum-security prison in Cranston, Rhode Island, Jeff Mailhot grabbed a pen and a sheet of stationery and traced an outline of his beefy left hand.

Pressing Obama for an answer Convicted murderer Darrell Jones has accomplished more in the worlds of media, entertainment, and activism from behind bars over the past 25 years than most free people do in a lifetime.

Secret, unaccountable, and co-opted The state prison in Warren has been hammered in recent months by an inmate murder and other violence, a prisoner hunger strike, legislative investigations exposing mismanagement and poor guard morale, and a request by human-rights groups for a federal probe of prisoner mistreatment.

Ted Kennedy's real record When a 32-year incumbent seeks re-election, there is a long and well-documented record that can be examined. So it's disconcerting to note that admit all the miles of newsprint and videotape that have been expended covering the US Senate campaign, little has been said of what Ted Kennedy has or hasn't accomplished.

Another Supermax hunger strike Protesting that nothing had been done by prison authorities to relieve the torture of prolonged solitary confinement, on August 17 inmates of the Maine State Prison’s 100-man Special Management Unit or “Supermax” reprised a hunger strike that had been abandoned last May.

TED'S TURN | August 26, 2009 A little-known provision in the crime bill now being negotiated by a House-Senate conference committee would greatly expand the number of prison cells available to house violent criminals, and it wouldn't be cost a dime. But it may be doomed unless Senator Ted Kennedy is willing to spend some political capital.

TED KENNEDY'S REAL RECORD | August 26, 2009 When a 32-year incumbent seeks re-election, there is a long and well-documented record that can be examined. So it's disconcerting to note that admit all the miles of newsprint and videotape that have been expended covering the US Senate campaign, little has been said of what Ted Kennedy has or hasn't accomplished.

SEX, DRUGS, ROCK AND PEACE | July 22, 2009 It is a nation of alienated young people. We carry it around with us as a state of mind in the same way the Sioux Indians carried the Sioux nation around with them. It's a nation dedicated to cooperation versus competition, to the idea that people should have a better means of exchange than property and money.

DAMN YOU, BARACK OBAMA | September 26, 2007 Now that Obama's small contributors have effectively rewritten the history of political-campaign funding, even die-hard cynics are drinking the Kool-Aid.